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Reviews tagging 'Religious bigotry'
Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell
69 reviews
dkamada's review against another edition
5.0
Moderate: Death, Fatphobia, Suicide, Violence, Religious bigotry, and Gaslighting
katie0528's review against another edition
4.5
I did listen to the audiobook and wish it was read by the author. The narrator was fine, but Amanda Montell hosts a podcast called Sounds Like a Cult, and she is so much more engaging when discussing these topics.
Graphic: Religious bigotry and Gaslighting
Moderate: Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Trafficking
Minor: Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Suicide, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Abortion, Cultural appropriation, Sexual harassment, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic
marija_m95's review against another edition
2.75
The first three parts (the book is divided in 6 parts) were somewhat satisfactory, and the author had some interesting views on how cultish language works to lure a person into becoming a part of a cult and also into staying in it.
But parts four, five, six felt like reading a completely different book, concentrating on MLMs, fitness groups and online communities which we can agree are "cult like" but they are not cults in the negative sense of the word associated with groups like Heaven's Gate or Jonestown. And while it was interesting to read how these groups and organisations possess cultish qualifies and cultish language it felt far too removed from the main topic.
Other downsides of reading these were the author's writing style, especially the signposting. Reading lines as "more on that later"; "we'll discuss this in part 6"; etc. creates aversion to the book and it's not something I'd like to encounter in any type of book. It would've been more suitable if this was a research paper.
Another thing was how the author was excessively present in the book and her numerous mentions of her hate towards Donald Trump felt like she was imposing her own political views upon the reader. We can agree that politicians use language to gain following and therefore a good political orator can have many similarities with a cult leader, but when only one politician is mentioned repeatedly as a bad example the book itself becomes biased.
Overall, this book felt misleading and not what I expected. While there were some interesting points to take from it, it wasn't anything groundbreaking and nothing I haven't heard of before. There was no new knowledge or perspective to be gained from this.
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide
Moderate: Death, Grief, Religious bigotry, and Gaslighting
Minor: Sexual assault
aglimpseinto's review against another edition
4.0
Moderate: Suicide, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, and Xenophobia
Minor: Body shaming, Bullying, Death, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Religious bigotry, and Gaslighting
cpsawcd's review against another edition
3.5
Minor: Rape, Sexual violence, Religious bigotry, and Cultural appropriation
julianairving's review against another edition
4.75
Graphic: Violence and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Toxic relationship
rainbopagn's review against another edition
3.0
Moderate: Suicide and Religious bigotry
Minor: Emotional abuse and Sexual harassment
unluckycat13's review against another edition
4.0
I'm unsure what people want in regards to intersectionality. You could probably go into depth in a lot of topics, but the author does talk about a lot of things that affect minorities of all sorts even when she's not directly shouting that group out. She does directly shout out minority groups often though.
Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Body shaming, Misogyny, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual violence, Suicide, Religious bigotry, Gaslighting, and Sexual harassment
aysha_blake's review
4.75
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, and Sexual harassment
wright_rendon_reads's review against another edition
5.0
This book combines two of my special interests: language and cults. This book is split into sections covering cults and cult(ish) groups: religious groups, self-help groups, MLMs, fitness groups, and online influencers/political groups. The book doesn't claim all of these are cults but that they do use language that cult groups tend to use like thought terminating cliches and love bombing.
This book was interesting, thought provoking, funny, and informative. I found myself turning it on even for a short drive to pick up food. (I listened to it on audiobook). I greatly enjoyed this as my last summer read before school started.
Moderate: Cursing, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, and Suicide
Minor: Body shaming, Racial slurs, Racism, and Religious bigotry
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